Enchanted Evenings:The Broadway Musical from 'Show Boat' to Sondheim and Lloyd Webber (98 page)

Scene 2
. Night Court: The Liberty Committee explains how they were arrested as they were attempting to stop a union speech. Since they had gathered together for this purpose, and since Mr. Mister gave strict orders to “arrest anyone forming a crowd,” the police arrested the Liberty Committee instead of Larry Foreman (Howard da Silva), “the man who made the speech.” Significantly, the Moll and Harry Druggist (John Adair), the only nonmembers of the Liberty Committee to be arrested—the Moll for soliciting her body and the Druggist his soul—sing their exchange to the main theme from “Nickel under the Foot.” Harry explains that “they won’t buy our milkwhite bodies, / So we kinda sell out in some other way—to Mr. Mister.” While waiting for the latter to arrive at Night Court and bail them out, Harry Druggist explains in flashbacks how each of the Liberty Committee has sold out.

Scene 3
. Mission: In a flashback sequence that moves from 1915 to 1917, Reverend Salvation (Charles Niemeyer) changes his sermon from peace to war in response to the requests of Mrs. Mister (Peggy Coudray), who represents her husband’s attempts to profit from World War I.

Scene 4
. Lawn of Mr. Mister’s Home: Junior Mister (Maynard Holmes) and Sister Mister (Dulce Fox), Mr. Mister’s vapid children, sing “Croon-Spoon.” Editor Daily (Bert Weston) arrives and capitulates to the demands of Mr. Mister, the paper’s new owner (“The Freedom of the Press”), and agrees to print whatever his boss wants. After Junior and Sister wildly exhibit their boredom in “Let’s Do Something,” Editor Daily offers the bored Junior a post in “Honolulu” to get him out of the way of union trouble.

Scene 5
. Drugstore: In a flashback Harry Druggist tells how he sold out to Mr. Mister six months earlier in order to keep the mortgage on his store, an act that led to the death of his son as well as the loving Polish immigrant couple, Gus and Sadie (“Love Song”).

Scene 6
. Hotel Lobby: The artists Yasha (Edward Fuller) and Dauber (Jules Schmidt) show nothing but loathing and contempt for “The Rich,” but nevertheless eagerly accept Mrs. Mister’s invitation for additional patronage (“Ask Us Again”) and join Mr. Mister’s Liberty Committee to obtain a free meal. Since they are apolitical artists who espouse “Art for Art’s Sake,” Yasha and Dauber do not even want to know the cause the Liberty serves.

Scene 7
. Night Court: After the Moll sings a complete version of “Nickel under the Foot,” the Liberty Committee witnesses the long-awaited arrival of Larry Foreman, “the man who made the speech.” Foreman explains to the Moll in “Leaflets” (an underscored rhythm song) how he has been formally charged with “Incitin’ to Riot.” He also asserts the power of the unions in the title song.

Scene 8
. Faculty Room: President Prexie accedes to Mr. Mister’s demand for compulsory military training in exchange for funding. Although the music is underscored almost throughout, this is the only scene without a musical number.

Scene 9
. Dr. Specialist’s Office: Dr. Specialist (Frank Marvel) lies in order to obtain his coveted research grants controlled by Mr. Mister. Ella Hammer (Blanche Collins) tells the press how her brother, Joe Hammer (“Joe Worker”), gets “gypped” and abused by a corrupt system.

Scene 10
. Night Court: Larry Foreman refuses to be bought by Mr. Mister, the boilermakers agree to join the steel workers, and a union chorus reprises “The Cradle Will Rock.”

Nathan Detroit (Sam Levene), who runs the oldest established permanent floating crap game in New York, is hard up for money, a special problem since the biggest plunger of all, Sky Masterson (Robert Alda), is in town,
ready to play. When Sky boasts that he can have any woman he wants, Nathan sees his chance. He wagers that Sky cannot win any woman Nathan points to. Sky takes the bet. At that moment, Sister Sarah (Isabel Bigley) of the Salvation Army comes marching by, and Nathan points to her. When Sky wins big at dice he forces the losers to attend a Salvation Army rally in order to help his pursuit of Sarah, whom he earlier had lured to Havana. In the end she converts him to her ways. Meanwhile Nathan agrees to wed Adelaide (Vivian Blaine), a nightclub singer with whom he has had a fourteen-year courtship.

While cast members of a revival of
The Taming of the Shrew
celebrate “Another Op’nin,’ Another Show,” the show’s stars, Fred Graham (Alfred Drake) and Lilli Vanessi (Patricia Morison), celebrate the first anniversary of their divorce. They take time from their bickering to recall they had once sung “Wunderbar” in a long-forgotten operetta. Lilli receives a bouquet from Fred, leading her to believe he still loves her, and she confesses she is still “So in Love” with him, but when she learns the flowers are meant for someone else she determines to be revenged. Fred’s problems are compounded when another member of the company, Bill Calhoun (Harold Lang), signs Fred’s name to a gambling debt. Opening night is peppered by warfare between Fred and Lilli, and by demands by two comic hoods for payment of the debt. Fred convinces the hoods that they must force Lilli to perform. Bill’s promiscuous girl, Lois (Lisa Kirk), helps him try to reform by promising she will be “Always True to You in My Fashion,” and the hoods eventually leave when the debt proves no longer valid on a technicality. They decide it might be more profitable to “Brush Up Your Shakespeare.” In the course of the evening, Fred and Lilli recognize they still do love each other.

Liza Elliott (Gertrude Lawrence), a successful but greatly troubled fashion editor of a prestigious fashion magazine, reluctantly consults the psychiatrist, Dr. Brooks (Donald Randolph). In two sessions she relates musical dreams of a glamour girl (the Glamour Dream) and marriage (the Wedding Dream) that contrast markedly with the state of her waking life. In her dreams Liza is the toast of the town; in real life she dresses in dreary clothing and protects her emotional vulnerabilities in a dispassionate affair with a
married man, Kendall Nesbitt (Bert Lytell). Her waking world unravels still further when Nesbitt offers to leave his wife and marry Liza. In her third dream, the Circus Dream, Liza goes on trial for her indecisiveness.

The people close to Liza appear metaphorically in her dreams. In the Circus Dream, Nesbitt is the first witness for the prosecution, her nemesis Charley Johnson (MacDonald Carey) is the prosecuting attorney, the movie star Randy Curtis (Victor Mature) serves as the attorney in her defense, and the magazine’s photographer Russell Paxton (Danny Kaye) appears as the Ringmaster. In a final session Dr. Brooks helps Liza understand the childhood trauma behind her fear of her femininity and success. As her repression vanishes, she is finally able to complete the song “My Ship,” which has haunted her throughout the play. Having achieved this understanding as well as her feminine identity, Liza realizes that she really loves Johnson.

Rosabella (Jo Sullivan) comes to the Napa Valley expecting to marry a handsome young man who has sent her his picture and proposed by mail. She is certain that she has at last found “Somebody, Somewhere” to really love her. But she soon discovers the handsome man, Joe (Art Lund), is merely a hired hand, and that the man who proposed is actually an aging Italian vintner, Tony (Robert Weede). He had sent her Joe’s picture, fearing one of himself would have disheartened her. He believes that she will quickly become reconciled and make him “The Most Happy Fella” in all of the valley. The shock, however, drives Rosabella into Joe’s arms. Eventually she realizes that Tony is an honorable, loving man. Bit by bit, she and Tony admit that they are “Happy to Make Your Acquaintance.” When he offers to accept not only her but the baby she is now pregnant with, she comes to love him.

Coming from a performance at Covent Garden, Professor Henry Higgins (Rex Harrison) meets a fellow scholar, Colonel Pickering (Robert Coote), and a somewhat raucous Cockney flower girl, Eliza Doolittle (Julie Andrews). Higgins casually mentions to Pickering that given a little time he could turn a flower girl into a lady, so when Eliza appears later at his residence asking him to make good on his boast, Higgins accepts Pickering’s wager on the affair. It is a long, hard struggle, but by the time Eliza can properly enunciate “The Rain in Spain” and Higgins takes her to Ascot, her pronunciation is perfect—even
if her conversation is not. Later she is successfully passed off as a lady at a ball, and she is so pleased that she confesses, “I Could Have Danced All Night.” At one point Higgins must bribe Eliza’s father, Alfred P. Doolittle (Stanley Holloway), to stay out of the girl’s life. With his newfound wealth Doolittle recognizes that he must subscribe to middle-class morality by marrying, so he urges his friends to “Get Me to the Church on Time.” But Higgins has no objections to rich, lovesick Freddy Eynsford-Hill (John Michael King) courting Eliza. So lovesick is Freddy he is happy merely to be “On the Street Where You Live.” Nevertheless, Eliza recognizes she is too intelligent for the charming but vacuous young man, so casts her lot with the reluctant Higgins, who is appalled but admits “I’ve Grown Accustomed to Her Face.” When Eliza returns Higgins can only respond, “Where the devil are my slippers?”

Junior Dolan (Ray Bolger), music professor and former child vaudeville star, presents his student’s jazz composition, “Slaughter on Tenth Avenue,” to the Russian Ballet. Prima Ballerina Vera Barnova (Tamara Geva) takes a fancy to Junior and sees to it that the ballet is produced with Junior dancing the male lead. Vera’s former partner and lover, Konstantine Morrosine (Demetrios Vilan), becomes extremely jealous, and during a performance, tries to turn a stage killing into a real one. At the last minute, Junior is warned by his devoted student, Frankie (Doris Carson).

Rodney Hatch (Kenny Baker), an unassuming barber, has come to shave Whitelaw Savory (John Boles). The latter, a prominent eccentric art collector, has recently acquired a statue of the Anatolian Venus for his Foundation of Modern Art, because it reminded him of a lost love. When Hatch is left alone, he foolishly puts the ring intended for his fiancée Gloria Kramer (Ruth Bond) on the statue’s finger, and the statue of Venus (Mary Martin) comes to life ready to love the man who summoned her. After some initial resistance, Venus wins Hatch’s affections and disposes of the shrewish Gloria. She also easily evades Savory’s agents, who want to “Catch Hatch” for allegedly stealing the statue. When Venus comes to realize the quotidian nature of her monogamous future with Hatch, she returns to Mount Olympus and her statue returns to stone. As a parting gesture she arranges the descent of a more suitable partner for the prosaic but endearing barber.

Joey (Gene Kelly), a handsome, small-time dancer, begins his courtship of innocent Linda English (Leila Ernst) by proclaiming about [“about” in original Bordman summary quoted here] her virtues, “I Could Write a Book.” Joey himself is notably short on virtues, so when Vera Simpson (Vivienne Segal), a rich, callous, past-her-prime matron, finds herself “Bewitched” by him and offers to set him up in luxury with his own nightclub, he all but drops Linda. In time, Joey’s selfishness and egotism pall even for the tolerant Vera. Matters come to a head when Linda tells Vera of a plan to blackmail her by threatening to tell Mr. Simpson of the liaison. The women agree that as far as Joey is concerned they no longer want him, and the other can “Take Him.” Having lost both women Joey wanders off into the night to find another romance.

We’re at an auction of items from the Paris Opera House. Here is a musical box, there a chandelier that featured in a famous accident. Suddenly it rises up to the top of the theater, and the action moves back several decades. Christine Daaé (Sarah Brightman) is a young member of the chorus of the Paris Opera. Unbeknown to all, she is helped by a Svengali, a vocal coach whom she has never seen. She believes him to be the spirit of the Angel of Music, promised to her as a guardian by her late father. The voice belongs to a phantom, the Phantom of the Opera (Michael Crawford), a facially disfigured genius who lives in the hidden passages of the opera house. He has fallen in love with his young student. He terrorizes the theater’s administrators into mounting a production of the opera
Don Juan Triumphant
. He also frightens the leading soprano, Carlotta, and causes the gigantic chandelier to crash into the auditorium. But the Phantom cannot accept the mutual affection between Christine and a young nobleman, Raoul de Chagny. He kidnaps Christine, taking her down to his secret apartments beneath the theater, on its underground lake. By this time he has committed murder, as well as terrorizing the theater and its inhabitants. A party of avengers, led by Raoul, is searching for him. Christine tears off the Phantom’s mask and, though appalled by the wreck of his face, shows him compassion and tenderness. The Phantom now has it in his power to kill Raoul, but her action has melted his spirit and he disappears, leaving Christine safely reunited with her lover as the show ends.

When Clara (Abbie Mitchell) fails to lull her baby to sleep with a lullaby about the languorous virtues of “Summertime,” her husband, Jake (Edward Matthews), tries with “A Woman Is a Sometime Thing.” One reason the baby has trouble sleeping is that Catfish Row is a noisy, dangerous place, where the menfolk are drinking and gambling. The men tease the crippled Porgy (Todd Duncan), who rides around in a goat-cart, about his love for Crown’s girl, Bess (Anne Brown). Crown (Warren Coleman) himself gets into a fight with his fellow gambler, Robbins (Henry Dobbins), and stabs him to death. Robbins’s wife, Serena (Ruby Elzy), is left to wail “My Man’s Gone Now.” Crown flees, leaving Porgy, who has been content to boast “I Got Plenty o’ Nuttin,’” free to court Bess. Arranging for her to get a divorce, he tells her, “Bess, You Is My Woman Now.” The neighbors all go on a picnic where a glib drug peddler, Sportin’ Life (John W. Bubbles), tells them of his cynical ideas about the Bible, insisting, “It Ain’t Necessarily So.” Crown suddenly appears, and he and Porgy fight, with Porgy killing Crown with Crown’s own knife. Porgy is sent to jail. When he is released he learns that Sportin’ Life has taken Bess to New York, so he sets out in his goat-cart to retrieve her.